Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Director: Michael Bay

Starring: Mark Whalberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor

Running Time: 165 mins

Once again the summer is blessed with yet another outing of the headache-inducing Transformers franchise, arriving in our cinemas to destroy minds and box-office figures simultaneously. After the original outing in 2007, followed by Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon in 2009 and 2011, respectively, we are now treated to Age of Extinction. If anything can be taken from the previous three films then surely you would have thought that Michael Bay would have learnt from his the flaws (are there are a lot!) of initial trio, and used them to bring his next trilogy (yes, 5 and 6 have been green-lit) and bring his CGI porn to newer levels, and a greater maturity.

He hasn’t, and they haven’t.

Set 4 years after Dark of the Moon, the remaining Autobots have been forced into hiding, due to government agents, led by Kelsey Grammer, believing them to be a threat to humanity after the aftermath of the battle of Chicago. The corpses of the caught ‘bots are then presented to scientist Stanley Tucci (providing a convincing Steve Jobs impression) who strips them down in order to harness the substance that creates the Transformers race, Transformium (no, really). Inventor Mark Whalberg stumbles across an old truck, which turns out to be an in-hiding Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), and it’s not long before the government get word of Prime’s whereabouts.

To try and gain any more of an understanding of the narrative to Age of Extinction would be a waste of time. The plot spirals out of control within the first half hour, before we get a chance to be introduced to the new caricatures (sorry, characters!), even with Bay’s child-like attempts to make the characters seem more interesting and ‘real’ with the over-protective father – daughter cliché being crammed down your throat almost as much as the laughably blatant product placement in almost every frame.

Then there’s the introduction to the new Autobots and Decepticons. There are some familiar faces in the form of Prime and Bumblebee, still communicating through his stereo system, but then there’s also the introduction of an army of new allies and foes, however they appear in such large quantities it is difficult to gain a grasp on just who the hell is fighting who, who the hell do I want to win and most importantly, why the hell do I even care?

2013’s Pacific Rim showed what you can do with a film about fighting robots. A surprisingly satisfying blockbuster with original, breath-taking action sequences and interesting characters (squeezed into a nice running time of just over 2 hours). However, it remains an impressive achievement for a city-hopping film which features fighting robots, that transform into all manner of objects featuring giant robot dinosaurs to be so incredibly boring, with the film once again falling into the trap of devoting the entire final 60 minutes to over the top action sequences where it is impossible to decipher what is going on. It is obvious that the criticism of the previous three instalments of the franchise have had no effect on Bay as a filmmaker. However as long as the Transformers bandwagon rolls on and on, taking in billions of dollars in the process, why on earth would you change it?

Verdict: A carbon copy of the previous instalments, albeit with a few minor changes. A bum-numbing, migraine-inducing snore-fest which doesn’t bode well for the future of not only the franchise itself, but on blockbuster films for years to come. We’re praying for Transformers 5 to crash and burn like so many of its robot counterparts.